Rating: NNN
The first time through the Kanye West-produced Finding Forever, it seemed strange that Common would allow his use of the term “ho” to be edited out of the track Drivin’ Me Wild (featuring Lily Allen), since the disc carries an explicit content advisory anyway. But after listening to the drippy hiphop love ballads, vulnerable revelations of heartbroken yearning and wistful homilies about making the world a better place for the children, the deletion made more sense.
With Finding Forever, Common clearly wanted to do one for the ladies, and likely realized after dropping the potentially offensive rhyme that the fewer references to hos, the better. He didn’t call himself Common Sense for nothing. If you can stomach the contrived slow jams and the sensitive soul-baring, there are a couple of decent joints produced by West, who makes good sample use of songs by Rotary Connection, Syreeta Wright, Nina Simone, Don Covay, Gil Scott-Heron, Seyfu Yohannes and touches on Mountain’s Long Red in a nod to the late J Dilla (who famously flipped it for De La Soul’s Verbal Clap).
